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Thank you for sharing this seamless weaving from an array of Steiner's work. Though I get what Angus is saying I didn't experience the snags. I see this as a group where you can take your deepening work with Steiner for a drive with the windows down up the coastal highway without concern of diminishing your standing with interlocutors that can't stomach Steiner or do have that fear of teaming ants in their brains.

In a world as polarized as ours I appreciate this message at this moment in American history. Hopefully in the despondence many people are currently feeling or in the catharsis people are feeling an awakening and an opening to the true needs of our time (which are the true needs of the other) can begin to take hold. By not holding your light under the academic nut shell you are walking the walk of I to I. Angus and Alexandre and I are taking up GA 2 and the preface, intro and the first part puts me in mind of how close we are culturally to recognizing how devoid of the I/humanity our institutions have become. Anthroposophy and its daughter Waldorf education are pressingly needed and relevant more and more. In Spiritual Science as Foundation for Social Forms (which this essay echos) he illustrates that the remembering of our heritage as spiritually incarnating beings will be key to breaking the bonds of the ideological clap trappery that have imprisoned us in a funhouse of mirroring media, educational, scientific institutions devoid of the signature of their authors. I know who wrote this essay because I can hear your breathy voice and the careful phrase turner that you are. You are a bridge builder. This is the kind of writing that can make Steiner palatable for those souls who are still slightly infected with exogenous toxins and other adjuvants our interventionist sociey injects into our bodies that kicks up allergic response to the cure.

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Matt says: Thanks, Jeff.

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An interesting read and nothing that I disagree with with regards to the content. However, the repetition of "Steiner says" so many times is verging on nauseating even for someone who readily recognizes what Steiner gifted humanity and the importance in his own life. Doing a little bit of introspection I can ask myself: "Why this feeling, Angus?"

An initial response to this is that the style (not the content!) can be read as contrary to the spirit of freedom. Who said what is much less important than what was said. A free spirit recognizes and attributes value to the observations of a person whether that person is a perceived authority or not. The occasional reference to an authority can be useful as times, however, a useful question to ask oneself can be "when does usage wander into the territory of excessive-use?" so that it may even become detrimental to the valuable content being communicated.

Style and content - Is a difficult balance to strike

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I can understand this response! I really did mean it when I said these are fragmentary comments on the text. These are just my notes on, well, what Steiner said. I read CW 217 while sick with the flu the last few days in preparation for a talk on Michaelic Consciousness for the Boston branch next week. There will be far more "Matt says" in that presentation ; )

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Excellent. I like listening to Matt :)

BTW it seems that Dornach has the same plan for Autumn as Urphänomen. They plan to do a series of presentations about "Leading Thoughts"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB5o4emTffg

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